“Father! What are you doing?”
“What I have always wanted to do, my child.” Father Gromund’s voice was unctuous and gloating. “Oh, to have been entrusted with the morals of so many sweet young things, to have heard every intimate confession, to have known every dirty thought—and finally!”
He ripped open her lower garments and worked his fingers enthusiastically in her sexual cleft.
“You are a priest of Ormazd!” she protested hysterically.
“Ormazd has deserted this world, child. Ahriman triumphs, and I am his priest now. It is so much more fun, after all! I have enjoyed your mother, and your sister, and now, sweetest of all, there is you, dear desirable Histrina. Do you wish to see your sister? Look over there. See what is in store for you.”
Histrina turned her head to follow his pointing finger. There, lying in shadow before the pews, was the naked body of her sister Questra. It bore countless ugly wounds and gashes. Questra had been beheaded, the head laid carefully beside the severed neck. Even in death her faced grimaced with indescribable suffering.
And nearby, on a low table, were the instruments which had been used on her. Knives, gimlets, a large axe. All were encrusted with blood.
In sheer grief, Histrina shrieked. The priest leaned over her, bringing his face close to hers. His eyes were shining. “I do not expect you to understand, my dear,” he said, looking into her horrified, staring eyes. “It takes one of education, such as I. You see, in obedience to Ormazd we had to repress so much.
Everything had to be dammed up. Now the dam has burst, releasing a madness of lechery and torture.”
With the last words he drew himself erect, lifting his face and raising his hands in the air, his voice wavering on the edge of sanity like a bird attempting to soar beyond the atmosphere. Then he regarded her again.
“Let it begin!”
He pulled up his robe. His penis was a ramrod in his hand. Guiding it to her vagina, he thrust it home.
Then he was bucking against her, lips drawn back, grunting and growling.
And Histrina sobbed and sobbed.
Standing on the platform atop the steps of the station, Laedo soon lost sight of Histrina among the ruined cottages. He sighed with frustration. A fair number of armed men roamed the village.
He set off after her, but had not reached the first row of houses when a party of nearly a dozen warriors emerged to charge at him, waving swords and shouting incoherently. One hurled a spear which narrowly missed him. He drew his gun and got off a couple of shots, aiming at his attackers’ legs and bringing one of them down.
He could probably have killed all dozen if he chose—but could he kill all of Hoggora’s men in the village?
And what would be happening to Histrina meanwhile? He retreated back to the station and pulled the steps up after him.
There was another, different weapon. A weapon of pure goodness.
Seated before the console in the control room, he lifted the lid of the sturdy box bolted to the board.
Within was the lever with which he had switched off the Ormazdian beam.
Laedo seized the lever in his right hand, and pushed. The lever clunked to ON.
He energised the engine with a trickle of power. The station rose a hundred feet in the air. Nudging the directional knobs, he pointed the projector tube at the ground. Then he steered it to hover over the village.
Nothing on the console told him whether the beam was actually working. The projector could have been damaged when the station made its crash landing on Erspia-2. But assuming that it was, then Courhart was now receiving, at full intensity, a beam strength initially designed to spread out and cover the entire planetoid.
Offhand, he was unable to calculate what the spread would be at only a hundred feet. To make sure he criss-crossed the village, hoping to invade all the dwellings below with concentrated waves of pure goodness.
Arrows and slingshot stones rattled against the underside of the station. Laedo bit his lip. Perhaps the beam was defunct after all. He considered setting the station down on the village and crushing what was left of the buildings here and there, cowing the occupiers by sheer bulk and force.
Then, through the viewscreen, he saw men drop their weapons and fall to their knees. Their hands were clasped together, their faces raised, their mouths working in anguished prayer.
He was seeing human beings turn from evil to good by the application of a piece of technology.
It would be easy to be cynical. Maybe Klystar was right.
He wondered how Histrina was getting on.
Father Gromund had raped her, had urinated all over her, had hit her full in the face with his fist, and now was selecting an instrument with which, just as an hors d’oeuvre , to cut off her right breast.
He let her see the knife, turning it so that the filtered sunlight gleamed on the blade, singing to it in a soft crooning voice, enjoying the look of stark terror on her bruised and bloody face.
Then the beam hit. His mind became full of confusion. The knife fell from his fingers and rang on the floor.
Histrina felt it too. It was like a pure white light shining through her brain, washing away every wicked thought, bringing back the innocence of her childhood. Her upbringing came back to her in full flood.
Feelings of benevolence filled her. Looking at the triumph of evil that surrounded her, she felt even greater horror, suffused with pity.
Father Gromund, too, was looking about him in stupefaction. His eyes boggled in disbelief as he beheld the mutilated corpse of poor Questra, realizing that he himself had been the jubilant perpetrator of her gruesome death. He threw himself at Histrina’s bonds, freeing her and helping her to her feet.
He fell to his knees.
“My child, my child! What have I done? Oh, Ormazd!”
Snatching up the knife, he offered it to her handle first.
“Take your revenge on me! Plunge the knife into my heart!”
Histrina took it from him, but flung it aside. She too fell to her knees. “What have I done, Father? I have killed people! I have soiled my virtue! And I don’t know why!”
Sobbing together, clutching one another, they both called piteously on Ormazd for forgiveness.
Histrina wore a simple white dress reaching to her ankles. A white flower was in her hair. On her face was a permanent look of sorrow.
She was looking down on Erspia-1 through the viewscreen. At first, when Laedo came for her, she had wanted to stay in Courhart. True, most of the people she had grown up with were dead, including her immediate family, but it was her home.
Laedo had dissuaded her. He felt it his duty to take her to Harkio, for treatment from his personal mentalist. Besides, she had been through enough, and life was going to be uncertain on Erspia-1 from now on.
He had done the best he could. He had taken the station up into space, choosing a midway elevation where the effects of the Ormazd beam would still be somewhat stronger than from its original height, and he had criss-crossed the planetoid, just as he had the village of Courhart, making sure that its influence would reach everywhere.
Then, when he judged the Ahrimanic influence had been counterbalanced, he had switched the beam off for good. The people of Erspia-1 were now free from artificial mental influence. They could work out their own attitudes, find their own consciences.
If there was such a thing as conscience.
Even then, it would take some time.
When he made his report to the authorities, they would feel it their duty to send help to the twelve Erspia worlds. That would present problems, quite apart from the considerable expense. He did not know, for instance how assistance could be rendered to the genetically altered fairies and gnomes of the split planetoid.